Naomi Pearce: Almost Conceptual

29 Jun-17 Jul 2022

Overview

Outset Archive at Matt’s Gallery

A launch event will take place on Wednesday 6 July, 18:30–20:30, details can be found here. The project will launch alongside the release of Unbidden Tongues #7: Continuity Girl, written by Pearce and published by Kunstverein München.

Almost Conceptual is the first in a series of creative responses to materials from the Matt’s Gallery Archive. After being given unlimited access to the gallery’s vast archive, the writer Naomi Pearce follows a trail of correspondence back to the 1970s; a box of postcards is discovered, and a former office secretary receives a phone call…

Combining interviews with site writing and fabulation, this aural investigation wills archival objects into action through voice and sound, while tracing the silences, withdrawals, and feelings of ambivalence this reanimation provokes.

Part prequel, part post-mortem, Pearce asks questions about the roles we play in work and life, about who gets to take up space in history, and why it is some people want to disappear?

Almost Conceptual will manifest as an audio essay and series of images presented online, alongside postcards from the series OUT OF SITE (1972 – 1976) by Robin Klassnik sent to Helen Kalkohven Dickson, which served as Pearce’s focal point available to view at Matt’s Gallery from June 29–July 17 2022, and then by appointment.

Artists